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"Now to get them! You'd better handle her, Mr. Vardon." "No, you do it, Dick. I'll stand out on deck and try to grab them." "We can all reach from windows," suggested Paul, for there were windows in the cabin. Dick was so successful in maneuvering his craft that Mr. Vardon had no trouble at all in catching the message-carrying toy balloons. The note was brief.
"Neither did I," admitted Dick. "I've seen one something like that," spoke Innis. "Where?" his chums wanted to know, as Dick slowed down his boat, the better to watch the biplane, which was now circling over the river. "Why, a cousin of mine, Whitfield Vardon by name, has the airship craze pretty bad," resumed Innis.
"Now for a test!" cried Dick, when the machine had been uncrated and set up on the temporary base. The attachments were made, an extra pair of trial propellers connected, and the power turned on. With a roar and a throb, the motor started, and as Mr. Vardon glanced at the test gages with anxious eyes he cried: "She does better than we expected, Dick!
Vardon, who was at the wheel of the Abaris, quickly changed her course when he saw what was about to happen, and the other pilot could have had plenty of room to pass in the air. Instead he altered his direction so as to coincide with that of Dick's craft. "They must be crazy!" "If they'll hit us we'll go to smash, even if she is a lighter machine than ours!"
"She may catch fire from the gasolene," said Dick, in a tense voice. "We ought to hurry all we can." "I could go down faster," said Mr. Vardon, "by starting up the motor. But I don't like to until I see what sort of landing ground we'll have." "No, it's wiser to go a bit slowly," agreed Lieutenant McBride. "We must save ourselves in order to save them if possible. It's a terrible accident!"
Innis and Paul arrived in due season, and were delighted at the sight of Dick's big, new aircraft, which, by the time they saw it, had assumed more definite shape. Mr. Vardon and his men had worked rapidly. "And that cabin is where we'll stay; is that it?" asked Paul, as he looked at the framework. "That's to be our quarters," answered the young millionaire.
Meanwhile, dry garments had been supplied to Larry and Mr. Vardon. A messenger came from Colonel Masterly to learn what was going on, and, when he heard of the rescue, Dick and his chums were excused from taking part in the day's closing drill. "He's coming around all right," the physician remarked to the young millionaire, on the way from the hospital, where he had been attending Jack Butt.
They do not mount on the hind-quarters of an eland even, but try to tear him down with their claws. Messrs. Oswell and Vardon once saw three lions endeavoring to drag down a buffalo, and they were unable to do so for a time, though he was then mortally wounded by a two-ounce ball.*
"Not that there's much danger of hitting anything," Dick explained, "though possibly Uncle Ezra and Larson might come up behind and crash into us. But at slower speed the machinery is not so strained, and there is less likelihood of an accident." "That's right," agreed Mr. Vardon.
I communicated my intention to an African traveler, Colonel Steele, then aid-de-camp to the Marquis of Tweedale at Madras, and he made it known to two other gentlemen, whose friendship we had gained during their African travel, namely, Major Vardon and Mr. Oswell.
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